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Lincoln and Douglas 

In Charleston 



By WILLIAM E. BARTON 



Lincoln and Douglas 

V 

In Charleston 



An Address by 
WILLIAM E. BARTON 



Delivered at the Sixty-Fourth 

Anniversary Celebration 

CHARLESTON, ILLINOIS 

September 18, 1922 



CHARLESTON, ILLINOIS 

The Charleston Daily Courier 

1922 



Lincoln and Douglas 

In Charleston 






(/liai'le.stoii does well to celebrate thus largely and 
worthily the sixty-fourth anniversary of the most notable 
event in lier history. The seven debates between Abraham 
Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas have given to seven Illi- 
nois cities an enduring name in literature. Wherever the 
stoiy of Lincoln is told, the name of this city must be men- 
tioned. Modern Charleston has shoAvn becoming pride in 
her heritage, and has manifested that pride anew in the 
solemnities and festivities of this day. Tliis notable pro- 
cession, repi oducing so many of the features of the proces- 
sion of sixty-four years ago ; the assembling of these thou- 
sands of people in the open air on this central space adja- 
cent to your court house ; the music and the addresses 
already delivered from this platform, make this a day to 
live anew in memory, and give the children of the present 
generation one more leason to remember what made this 
day illustrious in the experience of their fathers. Nature 
has been kind to us; the beauty of this autumn sunshine 
lends itself well to j:he spirit of this occasion. We shall 
long lemember this day. 

Let us remind ourselves anew of the events of that 
gatliering of sixty-four years ago, and recall some of the 
scenes that on that occasion were enacted. Let us also 
consider the significance of that event, that Ave may the 
better understand the full meaning of this one. 

It is unfortunate that so many historians and biogra- 
pheis (>r Lincoln have felt the necessity of making the 
strongest possible contrast between Abraham Lincoln and 
all the men with whom he was intimately associated. There 
is no reason why we should belittle other men to make Lin- 
coln, seem gi-eat. lie was great enough to find his own ele- 
vation above his contemporaries, even Avhen they are meas- 
ui'cd at their tuU stature. He Avho reads sixty-four years 
aftei- the event the speeches of Lincoln and Douglas is 

2 



impressed with the fact that Lincoln had in Douglas a 
foenian distinctly worthy of his steel. 

Abraham Lincoln was the greatest ni-an of his genera- 
tion, but Stephen A. Douglas is not a man to be held in 
contempt. 

Of the seven debates between these two great men the 
one at Oharleston has, like each of the others, some points 
of special interest. While this was not the largest of the 
gatherings, it was one of the larger ones, and it had some 
uni(jue features of picturesqueness. 

Lincoln and Douglas both spent the preceding night, 
Friday, September 17, in Mattoon and drove over on the 
morning of the debate. Each one headed a great proces- 
sion. In some respects the Charleston processions, start- 
ing as they did from the same point, and arriving almost 
sinuiltaneously, were more picturesque than in any other 
place where a debate was held. In each one there were 
thirty-two maidens representing the thirty-two states of 
the Union, though in Lincoln's procession Kansas rode 
alone, behind the others, and wore the legend "I Will Be 
Free.'" The Lincoln procession had a wagon drawn b}^ 
oxen, reproducing that in which Lincoln himself had 
driven across Coles county from Indiana in the spring of 
1830. There was a banner on which a diminutive Lincoln 
1 was smiting a mighty Douglas with a club, and ''the Little 
\ Giant" was being put out of commission by ''Abe, the 
'^ Giant Killer." Women had their part in politics in that 
day. A wagon load of maidens wiio were for Lincoln bore 
the inscription : 

"Westward the star of empire takes its way; 

The girls link-on to Lincoln, 
Their mothers were for Clay." 
It was in Charleston that Lincoln led off with a strong 
reply to the question whether his political views concerning 
I the negro involved a belief in negro equality. He said : 

"I do not understand that because I do not want a 
nefii'o woman for a slave, I must necessarilv Avant her for 
4 a wife." 

The Charlestou debate is always remembered in con- 

* nection with a personal incident of dramatic character. 

Lincoln had served for a single term in Congress, during 



the Mexican War. He did not believe In that war. He be- 
lieved that it was begun as an instrument of injustice and 
for an unworthy cause. He believed that its real purpose 
was to add to the American union new states where slavery 
was to be legalized. While he was in Congress, Mr. Ash- 
mun of Massachusetts introduced an amendment in which 
he declared that the Mexican War was unnecessaiy, and 
that President James Polk had exceeded his constitutional 
authority in its inception. For that resolution Lincoln 
voted. In the course of the earlier debates, Senator Doug- 
las attacked the record of Mr. Lincoln in Congress, declar- 
ing that in this ijarticular he had been unpatriotic. Lincoln 
admitted having cast this vote, and was proud of it ; but 
he also wished it to be understood that, the war having 
begun, he voted for every measure to supply the troops in 
the field with all that was necessary to bring the war to a 
speedy and successful termination. 

When the Charleston debate occurred, there sat on the 
platform Hon. Orlando B. Ficklin, a member of Congress, 
and a Democrat. Mr. Lincoln, in the midst of his closing 
speech, turned to him, and led him to the front of the plat- 
form, and required an answer from him, whether Lincoln, 
having indeed voted for the Ashmun amendment, did not 
loyally support the soldiers in the war. Mr. Ficklin was 
a political opponent of Lincoln, but was his personal 
friend, as he was a friend also of Douglas. Ficklin was a 
man of honor, and he admitted that Lincoln told the truth 
in regard to his own record on the Mexican War. In a 
debate of this character, every personal incident has a j)ar- 
ticular interest, and the Ficklin incident, creditable alike 
to Lincoln and to Ficklin, stands out as one of the best 
remembered events of the day. 

The events which led up to the Lincoln-Douglas debate 
were honorable to both the principal participants. It was 
a strong conviction of duty, tliougli not unmixed with po- 
litical ambition, which brought Lincoln back into politics 
in 1854, after he sui)posed himself permanently to have 
withdrawn. For the tirst time in liis legal career he was 
then a lawyer first and only incidentally a politician ; be- 
fore that he had been a politician first and a lawyer as a 



congenial and necessary accompaniment. When Lincoln 
returned to Illinois after his one term in Congress, he was 
at first bitterly disappointed in his failure to secure a}>- 
pointment as Land Commissioner of the United States. 
There is no disguising the soriow of his discovery that 
Zachary Tayloi*, whom he had done so much to elect, did 
not reward him with a position in Washington. Failing 
in this, Lincoln set himself to practice law, lost interest in 
politics, and was prospering as he never had prospered 
before. But the repeal of the Missouri Compromise woke 
him by its affront to his conscience, and he returned to 
politics under a strong; compulsion of duty. It does not 
answer this statement to reply that he hoped also to have 
been United States Senator in 1854, and was again disap- 
pointed when Lyman Trumbull was selected instead of 
himself. The whole incident is highly creditable to Abra- 
ham Lincoln. When he came back into politics he came 
with a conscience keenly alive to the evils and dangeis of 
slavery in the political and moral life of America. 

On the other hand, we must respect Stephen A. Doug- 
las for the events which gave Lincoln's candidacy its hope 
of success in 1858. Douglas had broken with the Buchan- 
an administration, and the reason was highly to the credit 
of Douglas. The administration had tried to force upon 
the unwilling people of Kansas a constitution known as 
the Lecompton Constitution, which they had never accept- 
ed and which would have nuide Kansas a slave state. Be- 
cause Douglas would not support this measure in the Sen- 
ate, he won the enmity of Buchanan and all the Buchanan 
office holders in Illinois. 

The United States Senate chamber can never hold 
more people than packed it, floor and galleries, on the 
night of March 22, 1858. On that afternoon it was reported 
that at seven o'clock Stephen A. Douglas w^ould speak in 
opposition to the measure of his own party. Those who 
had seats in the gallery in the afternoon held them, and 
others packed in until all rules w^ere broken and the. place 
was as full as it could be packed. Douglas had been sick 
in bed for two weeks, and he spoke without assurance that 
he would have strength tO' finish. He knew that he called 



down on him the wrath of the extreme pro-slavery element 
in the Democratic party ; he knew that the administration 
wonld do its best to defeat him in his approaching cam- 
paign. But he made his speech and renonnced James Bu- 
chanan and all his works. He made it plain that he was 
not speaking as a Republican or an Abolitionist, or even 
as an opponent of the extension of slavery. His reason, 
many times reiterated, was that the Lecompton Constitu- 
tion did not represent an honest vote of the people of 
Kansas. He said in so many words that if the pr-inciple 
of popular sovereignty were respected^ he would accept 
it regardless of the slavery issue ; it was none of his busi- 
ness, or of the Senate, whether Kansas decided to be a 
free state or a slave state. He even used that incautious 
sentence that, if this principle Avere safeguarded, he cared 
not whether slavery was voted up or voted down. 

So far as I have discoveied, Douglas did not repeat 
that statement, but Lincoln saw to it that he was not per- 
mitted to forget it.. 

Lincoln did care, and he kncAv that in his deepest soul 
Douglas cared. But Douglas was in a political situation 
which made it impossible for him to care effectively, and 
he Avas loyal to his principle of ''squatter sovereignty." 

Lincoln, Avlien he became a candidate for the Senate in 
1858, knew that Horace Greeley favored such action on 
the part of the Republicans of Illinois as should insure the 
election of Douglas. Indeed, there was some possibility, or 
so it seemed, that Douglas ndght become a Republican, as 
Trumbull and other influential Illinois Democrats had 
done. Lincoln determined to take higher ground than the 
Whig party had ever dared take, and he took it in his 
"house-divided-against-itself'' speech. 

Douglas had some right to appeal tO' the constituency 
of Lincoln for support. He was suffering persecution from 
the administration for fighting what he tried to think was 
their battle again the extreme pro-slavery wing of the 
Democratic party. He declared that it was not true that 
the American house could not stand if divided on the 
slavery issue; it always had stood, though part of the 
states held slaves and others did not. 

6 



So far as tlio (luaiiel Avas between tAVo ■\viugs of the 
DeiiiociacY, Lincoln could afford to be an amused spec- 
tator. His was the cheerful neutrality of the settler's Avife 
— ''Go it, husband — Go it bear !" But Lincoln went mu<-h 
more deeply than this into the matter at issue. These two 
truths he mercilessly hurled at Douglas : The slavery issue 
was a moral issue, and every right-minded man ought to 
care whether it was voted up or down : and, The slavery 
issue was not a sectional but a national issue. 

Douglas had broken with the Buchanan administra- 
tion on the question of tlu^ Lecompton Constitution for 
Kansas, and Douglas Avas right. He had refused to be a 
party to the nefarious scheme of forcing a slave constitu- 
tion upon Kansas. But in so doing he had taken pains to 
afifirm that he took his position not as an Abolitionist or 
even as an opponent of slavery, but only as an advocate of 
popular sovereignty. If the people had a free vote, he 
cared not whether slavery Avas A'oted up or A'oted doAvn. 
That unguarded remark of Douglas Lincoln used Avith 
telling effect. If the slavery question Avas not a moral 
question, he said, then Judge Douglas had a right to say 
that he did not care Avhetlier it Avas voted up or voted doAvn. 
But Lincoln maintained that the slaA'ery question was a 
moi-al question and that it Avas a national question. He 
had introduced the campaign Avith the declaration that this 
government cannot permanently remain half slave or half 
free. Douglas said that it had so remained from the begin- 
ning and the founders of the lepublic distinctly intended 
that the slavery (juestion should be a question for each 
state to determine foi- itself. Lincoln replied that AA'hile 
the founders of the ie]>ublic saAV no present Avay to deliver 
the nation from the evil of slavery they recognized it as 
an evil, Avlieieas Douglas could not consistently think of 
it as an evil, for if he did so he could not say that he cared 
not whether it Avas voted up or voted doAvn. 

Here Avas Avhere Lincoln had his great advantage, and 
he pressed it mercilessly. The slavery issue Avas one Avhich 
could not be treated longer as haAdng only a commercial 
or political chaiacter. It Avas a moral Avrong and a na- 
tional disgrace. Lincoln did not see any immediate way 



ill wliicli shiveiy could be abolisliMl, but lie took his stand 
s(iuarely against any extension of it, and as in faAor of its 
ultiniate extinction. 

The house was divided. The political house of Doug- 
las Avas divided, and it was his fate to diWde it still worse. 
Xot only did he not win the support of the ''Black Repub- 
licans" as he publicly called them, but he alienated the 
extreme southern Democrats. The speech in which he 
sought to make himself master- of a divided house was the 
speech that ultimately kept him out of the White House. 
It Avas a brave speech, but it made it possible later to say, 
"Lincoln split rails, and Douglas split his party.'' Douglas 
Avon the Senatorial re-election ; he may be said to have won 
it by his courage in opposing the administration ; but he 
lost the higher prize, and lie proved a good loser. The last 
time he and Lincoln stood on the same platform Avas on 
March 4, 1801, when Douglas held Lincoln's tall, shiny 
new hat, and Lincoln read his inaugural address as 
President of the United States. 

The seven cities in Avhich these memorable debates 
occuried have reason to- commemorate AA^ith pride their 
share in the defining of an issue Avhich the Iavo men clearly 
faced and Avliich did not subside until the house ceased to 
be divided against itself, and the Avliole nation became free. 

Little did Charleston realize on that notable day, 
sixty-four years ago, Avhat momentous issues hung upon a 
])olitical meeting held AAithin her borders. On that day 
this town became one of the great battle-fields where 
human history Avas made. Not merely an election to the 
Senate depended upon the discussions of Avhich this Avas 
one, but the election of a President, and the (luestions 
which accompanied that election, greater in their moment 
than any man could have imagined. The issues here dis- 
cussed Avere not to be settled until the battle here fought 
Avas Avaged on Avider and redder fields. Then the Avorld 
understood the full meaning of the things of Avhich Lincoln 
and Douglas talked in Charleston. The house is no longer 
divided. We are one nation, and that Avhole nation is free. 



8 

W 60 S 






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